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New Chips Keep Tight Rein on Consumers
banannaslug writes "NYTimes (subscription, etc.)
talks about Microsofts Palladium. The article addresses how applications of controlling technology affect competition as well as the consumer, can be used to extend monopolies to new markets and has
very serious implications for what happens to user driven innovation. We'd have the people's operating system, the people's web browser and the people's media player, and 'computers' would be as useful to innovation as a bicycle to a fish.
This is the kind of behavior you expect in a mature industry that tries to add
'law' to preserve failing market models dependent on a lack of competition. Next thing you know they'll want to force customers to upgrade periodically." Point it out to your boss.
Am I wrong or this is the purpose of the new Microsoft Software Assurance licensing program? Not that they force you to upgrade. But when you pay for a year subscription, most businesses will want to upgrade not to waste the money they spent in the Software Assurance, practically forcing their users to update.
Now forgive me if I didn't understand the new Microsoft licensing program, that is just an opinion. Cheers.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
name : spamfree pw : spamfree
If you don't like it don't buy it. Nobody is forcing you to buy these computers.
The only complaint people seem to have is that if the general population buys into this, then we won't get the discount of commodity hardware.
The current unencumbered hardware isn't going to go away unless people stop buying it, or a law is made against it.
Considering that our government tends to treat the entire population of the U.S., collectively, like a bunch of rowdy sixth-graders who can't be trusted to so much as tie their own shoes, does it come as any great surprise that the people behind this insanity (the entertainment industry, and probably Senator 'Disney' Hollings somewhere in the background) are taking pretty much the same view?
Micro$platt is, in essence, accusing us all of being thieves and media pirates in advance, and they're using that position to justify Palladium. All I can hope is that it'll die the same horrible death as DIVX did.
One thing I will say: If this goes through at full bore, it'll probably be a huge shot in the arm for the used-computer industry. Perhaps those who have pre-Palladium PCs, and non-PC systems (Suns, MicroVAXen, etc.), shouldn't be so quick to get rid of them.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
I'll stop worrying the day that my relatives who don't understand the difference between a CD and a hard-disk, understand at least this.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
DRM, authorized application and OS... Isn't it the thing Senator Disney Holling has been trying to put as a law ?
...)
This is something that both Microsoft, in his fight against OpenSource and RIAA/MPAA in their fight to restrict rights of consumers want...
But there are two ways it can be implemented : mandatory or optionnal.
Mandatory means that if the OS don't authenticate, it's access to some of the hardware would be limited. That could prevent OS like linux to run.
Optionnal means that it would be possible for the OS to authenticate with the chip and then, to get access to some cryptographic system that can be used when dealing with DRM-specific content but otherwise don't interfer with the OS.
With many (and more coming) big companies and governments betting on Linux, we can hope that it'd be optionnal... Allowing it to be mandatory would be suicidal for all those relying on Linux (like Disney, IBM, HP,
Future will tell us... But Palladium is a dangerous bet for Microsoft as, in the beginning, there will be both Palladium-enabled and Palladium-free systems available... and with more and more people switching from Microsoft to Linux, these Palladium machines could remain unsold and Palladium could sign the end of Microsoft in OS market...
> The current unencumbered hardware isn't going to go away unless people stop buying it, or a law is made against it.
Both are more likely than you might think. Never forget that free market models are only applicable to free markets: Consumers do not have a free choice in an almost completely monopolized market. That is: I agree that nothing's lost until people actually start buying and using these Palladium based technologies, but what people buy or what people use is to very large extent a result of marketing. And - as we all know - Microsoft has a lot of resources to do "good" marketing...
Situation A: Lonely midnight pasty white hacker codes up easy to use, secure, encryption software for the common user. This is something which can be used for good or evil, but should nonetheless be available for everyone to use. He publishes the code so people can ensure that there's nothing going on behind the scenes. He is praised on high and given verbal rimjobs by the "community."
Situation B: Same as A, except the hacker is now Microsoft. They are slammed, accused, and drilled by the "community," the only real difference being that their code will not be modifyable for distribution while the hacker above's will be. (They're releasing it under shared source remember.)
Shit, click on any crypto article and you will have people whining about how there is no easy to use, open source crypto software installed on everyone's computer. Now we're getting it by the only company who could actually get it on every computer, and you bitch and whine because of one facet of the implementation, DRM, which is inevitable and would happen regardless of who developed the cryptosystem. You either get crypto on every computer, and DRM, or no crypto and no DRM, you can't have one and not the other. Deal with it.
So finally, I can actually send a secret to Grandma via e-mail without anyone being able to snoop in on it. But sure, you can skip over mentioning that part (something rather incredible given it's been 30 years since RSA) because it obviously takes too much effort to actually boycott the RIAA or stop pirating music in order to get them to respect your "fair use" rights. String up Microsoft instead, right?
I'd have issues with it if we wouldn't be able to see the source code, but we will be able to. It doesn't matter that it's not GPLed in this situation.. if there is a bug you can be sure MS will fix it ASAP since their ass is riding on this software. This is not IE.
Also, if you end up not being able to install Linux on your computer because of the hardware, either blame yourself for buying the hardware knowing that Linux was not up to speed yet, or blame the Linux hackers for not supporting your hardware. Don't blame MS for getting crypto in every home -- that's been a something that everyone who knows anything has wanted since the 70's. Don't kid yourself -- without MS doing it, it would never happen.
--
MS can just make it a precondition to using the designed for MS Windows XP or whatever the next version is.
If the only way to get MS signed drivers for your hardware is to implement Palladium, they will likely do it.
There are three types of person:
a) us Geeks which upgrade at the drop of a hat (A GREEN LED instead of a RED one? Ooo, where's my Visa)
b)The folks that buy the multi Ghz serverclass workstation to play solitaire and reproduce the words 'You've got mail!'..and typically buy one computer per decade,
b) and my Mom...who's been living happily on my handmedowns for years. While I'm running a Ghz Athlon with GeForce graphics, she was happy with the PII 300 and the P1 120 before it.
At least from an end user (I'm ignoring business pc's for the moment) only 'a' above drives upgrade cycles.
Be honest, how many IT folk have you encountered whos primary computer is, like, five years old? The number is disturbingly high.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
but how much would Palladium affect developers (non-commercial, home-brewed programs)? I mean, under this system, only "digitally signed software" would be allowed to run. How would someone go about certifying their own program?, because if someone could do this, it defeats the whole purpose of Pallidum. So maybe VB Pallidum edition would certify your own code, but in the meanwhile would also certify the code of virus writers too. How about if someone writes a program in (C/C++/Perl/etc) on a (*nix/mac/sun/etc) and try to run it on a Windows Pallidum system?
$cat
IT has been itching to seize control over the desktop ever since those rouge PCs yanked control from the terminal/mainframe days. This OS will help that greatly. Say goodbye to Personal in PC.
The home user will most likely reject it. We think about gramps with a computer, who doesn't care, but in almost all family situations, there's a younger and computer literate geek who is called whenever there is a computer problem. Most of them love Microsoft now (look at the flame wars here for examples). Removing Personal from PC at home just ain't going to fly. People will reject it and if future hardware enforces it, the hardware market will take a huge negative hit for years while people hold on to legacy computers until they all die out. For advanced gaming, we'll just buy consoles. For our home box tinkering needs, we'll hold on to our trusty current boxes...
Does anybody think this is just a reglossing of the personalization stuff in Passport that didn't fly?
They made a big deal of grabbing and getting control over your personal information and when that went over like a fart in Church they backpedaled and thought:
"Well, will they accept it if we word it _this_ way?"
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
When I opened up an article which discussed, among other things, inkjet printer cartridges which were designed to fail if they were refilled, I found a popup ad telling me that I could save 80% off my inkjet cartridges by refilling them.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
I don't like Microsoft. Let me get that out of the way right now. I consider the company to be a shining example of some of the worst aspects of capitalism.
But Microsoft isn't what worries me. Microsoft does not make me paranoid. Why? Because I know that no matter what happens with Microsoft, I can always choose not to use their products. I can buy or build myself a perfectly usable computer that runs Mac OS X, Linux, or what have you, and is certified 100% MS-free.
What worries me is the spectre of DRM laws mandating how my computer works and what types of programs I may and my not write.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen.
I worry that someday, when I sit down to code away on my digital photo managment software that I will have to incorporate government-mandated checks to ensure that no one could possibly use my product in any illegal activity.
As I sit here in England, people are celebrating Independence Day back home in the U.S. I will be later today, too. I'm proud to be an American; I'm proud of the freedoms that I enjoy under the U.S. Constitution. But I am paranoid that many of the basic freedoms that I have always counted on are being swept silently away - in the name of big corporations, in the name of security, in the name of profit.
Security is a great thing, but not at the expense of freedom of speech. Companies and artists need freedom from theft, but not at the expense of law-abiding people. We already have laws for punishing thieves and crackers. Use those laws.
------
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
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Here's where the story was first reported in the mainstream press, with far more information, analysis, and interviews: Newsweek article by Stephen Levy. You might also want to read Microsoft's own take on this initiative.
The important thing to understand about Palladium is that it doesn't improve security for the end user. I can control what software runs on my machine right now, and I can refuse to run incoming code that isn't signed by a trusted party. Pallidum's sole purpose is to give IP owners control my computer, because as long as I have control over my computer then digital rights management is a paper tiger.
If there is hardware that refuses to run without the right signature, then there is no way for me to install anything that bypasses digital rights management. The fact that Linux will certainly not have the right signature is just a happy byproduct of the fact that I can't develop or install certain kinds of software.
This kind of technology makes me shudder.
Computers have yet to penetrate really deeply into the average consumers home.
This type of User doesn't generally create anything really complicated with their computers, they'll hardly even notice the difference between Palladium PCs and Unrestricted Computers.
As long as they have Web, E-mail, Word-processor, something to do Invite cards to parties and work with Digital cameras etc. they'll be perfectly happy.
They will not understand the nerdy minorities issues, and certainly won't raise a fuss as we're carted off screaming by the authorities when we're all branded unmutual or something.
It'll only be the next generation (or the next after that) who realise that their capacity to innovate and progress humanity has been curtailed.
From my Autobiography - "Lifestyles of the Sad and Desperate"...
From the sound of this the chips will hardly be useful for quite a while, when even hopelessly old machines have it. There needs to be a critical mass of hardware for content providers to release anything, since nobody is going to run out and replace all their PCs which do nothing different except allow you to play stuff in MS' file formats that they charge you for. For the first few years it won't even matter that its there, none of the detrimental effects everyone here predicts will happen since nobody's using it. THEN they'll turn it on full blast when the only place you can find a machine without it is smoldering in a chinese PC recycling center.
MS to eradicate GPL, hence Linux
Palladium will essentially prevent you from rebuilding your kernel. It won't stop you from compiling it, but it will make your computer "untrusted", and therefore prevent you from running any program or accessing any DRM-encrypted file that requires the facilities that the "Fritz" chip will provide.
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> That's why you vote with your dollar and don't give in to the temptation to purchase products from companies who you don't want to "rule" the market.
The point he was trying to make is that consumers dont have the luxury to do this. We might think, as individuals we do, but by virtue of existing monopolies (and the fact that they have sprung up in numerous forms over the past 500 years) shows that it is not a viable solution to tell people not to participate in a market where the only viable choices are choices they do not wish to make.
Too often the consumer is forced to pick the lesser of evils instead of the best of breed. That, I think, is what bothers many people.
The alternative to free markets (capitalism), and state-controlled markets (communism) was proposed by an economist called Polyani, post WWII (I think.) He proposed, much like the checks and balances in government, groups of producers and consumers haggling over pricing until both producers and consumers were happy. Thus, no product could be sold until the consumers (now as powerful as the collective powers of producers by virtue of this process, where the might of collective teamwork is finally an advantage consumers can have too) had agreed on what price the market will bear. Everyone pays the same price, and you dont get the phenomenon we have now, where MS extorts higher and higher prices out of fewer and fewer people, but effectively allows them to keep controlling the market by the sheer ubiquity of their product. Remember when MS offered to give away software to schools?
Sure, I can vote by not purchasing something, but as it stands, as individuals, we have difficulty amassing and and using our collective might in the market, while companies have the advantage of making money from working as a team.
This is why, historically, the 'supply' end of the market has been disproportionately more powerful and more prone to natural monopolies in markets where the product is a second-tier need (not air, water food, but telephone, publishing (art and culture), PC and OS, etc) rather than a luxury.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Kind of like any economic graph measuring the elasticity of a product's price. You need to find the sweet spot between achieving your ultimate end goals and what the customer will tolerate before moving to a competitor.
So even if you love Microsoft, your best bet is to publically rally against this thing. When Microsoft sees the public backlash, they will come back with a slightly gentler version.
But make no mistake about it, eventually, it will happen, and they have the market dominance, funds, and patience, to eventually ram it through the market... My very first boss told me that the best way to affect change in a company is to make small baby steps instead of one big giant step. People won't notice it if you change a little at a time. But if you do it a bit at a time, you'll catch them sleeping and by the time they realize the cumulative effect of all the mini changes, it will be too late.
Oh yea, and i suppose the government controlling everything is better than Microsoft controlling everything. Thanks, but i'd rather have Microsoft controlling everything.
Oh yes, I can see it now:
UNITED STATES OF MICROSOFT AMERICAN(tm) - CITIZENSHIP AGREEMENT
By residing in the United States of Microsoft America(tm) you hereby agree:
a) to pay one half of your earnings to Microsoft Government(tm) on a monthly basis, for all the great services that they provide.
b) Microsoft Government(tm) will not be held responsible should you injured, die, be made bankcrupt, or suffer any other type of misfortune as a result of the actions, or inaction of Microsoft Government(tm).
c) Should the United States of Microsoft America(tm) suffer any security breach by a terrorist or another country during times of war, Microsoft(tm) will not be held responsible for any resulting loss of life or property.
d) Anyone publicising any failure, negligence or other fault of the Microsoft Government (tm) will have their Microsoft Citizenship(tm) immediately revoked.
f) etc. etc.
Hm. Not on cnn.com, nor on news.bbc.co.uk, abcnews.com or foxnews.com, including streams (live IIRC) for cnn, abc and bbc.
Hoax, I think. Mod me down for being offtopic - happy to lose karma for exposing it.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
This is all about restricting your right to choose what you want to do: do you think for one moment that Palladium-disabled computers will:
1> Run Linux?
2> Run Gnutella?
3> Run Freenet?
Suppose that some form of software gets up the Government's nose, say GPG. Pull the certificates for that software, and *boof*, it's gone.
This application fully embraces the centralizing possibilities of public key encryption: control flows up to the top of the pyramid, just like X509 certificates have a chain of authority: validity is drawn from authority. For X509, the Head Honcho is Verisign, and we know how responsible and responsive they are.
The other possibility is GPG's trust model, or SPKI, which embrace bottom-up authority and allow you to pick who you trust: we already have code signing for many applications - MD5 checksums PGP-signed by the authors of the software, common for GPG distributions and many other things.
It's not about the basic technology, but about who is in charge of it.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
being FORCED to use it. Your argument reminds me of Stalman's contention that all software should be free/open. How can you be an advocate of freedom if you maintain that nobody should release closed-source software (are they not free to do so?) Similarly, while crypto and security are good, the idea that any particular implemenation of same will be hardwired into your hardware, only to work with software that uses the same implentation, is a little distasteful.
Now, of course, you will say that we aren't being FORCED to use palladium. Well, that's the problem with Microsoft. Their crap becomes the defacto standard that everybody else follows, for better or worse. Alternatives tend to shrink or disappear over time. Most people here on the dot probably like PGP/GPG. But if Microsoft incororated those into Office and said you could only share documents with people who also had it installed, and had the proper keys (given to you by Microsoft, after you 'signed' a EULA,) then you'd hear the same complaints. And those complaints would be legitimate.
Evil is the money of root.
Have you forgotten that "monopolies" are LEGAL? And MS is one? Dont you think its a little obvious MS has a monopoly on OSes? Man, sometimes I have a hard time distinguishing between religious folks and people who place their faith in uber-free markets.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Why does this new crypto-system have to be implemented through hardware?
As far as I am concerned, Microsoft can push Palladium all they want (I don't use their products anyway) and put all of the crypto and DRM stuff in as they want as long as they do it only as software...for me, it is the hardware part that bothers me (not that I use any x86 hardware either), because it seems to have (as just about everyone has noted) a very strong potential for abuse by certain monopolies. As long as it is hardware, then people are free to switch... But if the two leading CPU manufacturers implement this kind of thing in hardware, then the options are severely limited.
Of course, if this does happen, and (an even bigger if) Apple decides to lower their prices, then I have a feeling that they won't be able to produce computers quickly enough to satisfy the new demand for non-DRM hardware (assuming they don't jump on the bandwagon).
Anyway, just my stupid, uninformed opinion. Feel free to tear to shreads.
Cheers. :)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I hate to break it to you, but Steven Levy is nothing more than a cheerleader for Microsoft. He is about as biased a writer as you're likely to come by when it comes to issues like "intellectual property".
... then they came for me.' idea (he was comparing himself as a victim of copyright infringement to a victim of the holocoust).
I lost all respect for the man when he published an article that was a play on the 'first they came for X and I did nothing
-- Shamus
Bleah!
If something's for sale, and I purchase it, I would like to believe that it's for my use. Example. I purchase a car. Mine to drive, modify, and use as I see fit. I don't have a rep from Ford checking to make sure I'm using only Ford Approved Parts, and ready to tow my car away if he finds I'm using something that doesn't have the Ford Seal of Approval. I have no problem with paying for something that I find to be useful. I have a problem with buying something that has its' usefulness to me curtailed by design. When I have to call my Microsoft Mommy and say "Mother May I?" to install something new in my computer is going to be the day I finally get off my ass and switch over to Mac.
What's obvious is you haven't been paying any attention. The whole PC hardware industry is geared towards making the pieces of junk that will host Microsoft's operating systems, instead of truly inspired hardware designs. The reason? To avoid being shut out for NOT being able to run what everyone else is running. Microsoft says jump and AMD/Intel/VIA/Asus/etc. say, "how high?"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As long as it is software, then people are free to switch...
Sorry. ^^;
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
What I'd like to see is those guys and the Palladium guys fight it out at Microsoft first, before they deliver us an OS that makes sure that the spam and Disney advertising gets through, but nothing else.
Careers should combine three things: what you can do, what you want to do, and what you can get paid for.
While there is a case to be argued about the use of company resources for personal benefit, I believe you are failing to consider all the factors leading to the PC revolution in the workplace.
Those old, slow, overpaid and overstaffed IT departments that were shot down in the eighties died because, once computers became cheap and powerful enough, the mere mortals in accounting and marketing wouldn't have their work controlled by a bunch of nerds. I find it hard to believe these guys will be willing to give the control back to a centralized entity.
Even the supposed benefits of control won't be enough when Jane from marketing and Will from sales go over the CIO head and tell the CEO that those same nerds are again hurting the company profits with their new policies and controls. And that, by the way, the new product launch will be postponed because the nerds couldn't deliver the new server in time for the website launch.
Neither a centrally planned economy, not pure unrestrained capitalism works. Regulated markets are the best we can do. Greed is evil, and self-destructive, but with nothing in it for me, I won't get off my ass. We must forever struggle to find a balance.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
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Both are more likely than you might think.
Not really, I am almost certain people will buy this crap by the truckload for pennies of savings. I also think most people would rather complain about their rights being taken away then spend pennies buying the unencumbered hardware.
1> Run Linux?
Yes. You just won't be able to use the Palladium features of the processor, this has already been discussed previously.
However, with things like SCCCA and CBDTPA recurring every few years, don't you think you're being a bit naive?
2> Run Gnutella?
I don't see why not. But now you'd actually be able to use it for legitimate file-sharing rather than pirating MP3's and other programs, because the content of the musicians would be protected..wait, you don't pirate things do you?
I do see why not: who said that M$ *had* to give a certificate to anything? Five years after this sucker is adopted, how much do you think it is going to cost to get Microsoft to sign a piece of software? $500? $5000? $5,000,000?
3> Run Freenet?
That would kind of mean that Microsoft would have to use the chip to block a Java VM from running, and I don't really think Sun would like that..I'm guessing that didn't cross your mind.
Java? Big, big security hole there for DRM applications. Hell, interpreted languages pose a big risk:
10 INPUT $A
20 PRINT $A
being a perfectly functional DRM circumvention device, and all.
Sorry, but I don't think you're seeing the big picture, politics and culture included it's pretty obvious at Palladium is a Very Bad Thing, even if technically it looks OK at some levels.
We're seeing the thin edge of the wedge, don't forget that.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Don't like car prices, don't buy THAT car.
People buying $30k SUV's complain about the cost of cars and gas.
Buy the $10k 2L engined car then. Or a moped, or a bike, or a bus pass.
Microsoft has a partial monopoly because nobody wants the alternative. Enough people want something else, and Linux is becoming a viable alternative.
The don't buy it is your action, it isn't an excuse. People need to realize that the cost of dealing with MS is less then the cost of using an alternative, and THAT is why they are where they are, and that is how they sustain their monopoly.
We could all go install Redhat with openoffice tomorrow, but it just isn't worth the trouble, or else we WOULD.
Personally I don't buy it, because it doesn't offer a benefit which exceeds its cost.
If were were dealing with straight capitalism, we would just sit back and laugh at things like this. But things like monopolies subvert the normal functioning of capitalism, which means the mechanism to 'punish' stupidity in the marketplace are subverted. So nobody is laughing (except Gates).
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
To you "discount of commodity hardware" is the only complaint?! Gee, the vast majority of the complaints I've been seeing (even here on
invasion of privacy
erosion of Fair Use Rights
the rights of content creators (my complaint), as opposed to the alleged rights of corporative entities like the RI/MPAA
total Microsoft domination of the OS market through a hardware wedge
the possible virtual elimination/obsolescense of the GPL, and/or (GNU/)Linux
And here's a new one: jurisdictional misuse to enforce the DMCA (a US law which doesn't bind those of us outside the US) through hardware. Do you really think all those big US-based hardware manufacturers will make one version for the US and one for the rest of the world? Heh. In my country, we don't have a DMCA...(yet)
Funny, I don't see any (purely) "money" issues in there at all. Then again, as I've said before, there are some things that just don't come down to money, especially since it's damn hard to put a definitive price tag on rights (whether "inalienable" or not) and freedoms, except maybe (as Tom Jefferson said) "eternal vigilance."
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
No it isn't. The hardware and software Microsoft is proposing would control ANY software, not just pirated software. If Microsoft wanted to edge someone out of the market, they could just make it possible that that software wouldn't run on your computer. Illegal or not.
Did you read the article? It's like the example they give about printer cartridges: I can legally buy a refill kit for a printer cartridge, but if the cartridge contains a chip that can tell if it was refilled (and consquently refuse to work), then my legal refill kit does nothing for me. And the inventor of the kit is pushed out of the market. Microsoft's technology is along the same line -- it limits your freedom and discourages innovation.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Yeah, I understand what you mean. Alot of the features MS is working on would actually be pretty cool (assuming they work properly).
The problem is that the reality won't match the claims. The thing won't work properly; that is pretty much a given. However, even worse than the probable bugs is the fact that everyone will have to trust a company that consistently has proven itself to be NOT trustworthy and that freely exploits any advantages it has. That is what we are worried about.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Is it to get me to do something or is it to just to give me a shock? This dog brain is confused?!?!?!
I can't wait until its a law that my home alarm system has to be MS run and they get to decide who comes and goes into my house. Perhaps we'll have to license our own existence by them.
True, theft is wrong, period. I don't steal or bootleg any of my computer software, however, that doesn't mean that I'm not against DRM technology. If anything, the courts should decide whether or not my use of some software is legalNOT a software company trying to squeeze every last penny out of me.
The problem with most DRM schemes is that they go too far. They make perfectly legal activities impossible. They allow corporate interests to dictate how I use equipment and software that I paid for. That I own. Now there is a very good point that people can make stating that, well, if you don't like that particular technology in so-and-so company's product, then just don't use them. Fine, okay. But when so-and-so company represents a monopoly and uses this technology to effect the market place and drive out competition, then that's wrong. In fact, it's illegal. That's the problem.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
As I understand it, you can run unsigned code on Palladium. In the patent for their funky new OS, the features MS lists are maily for keeping unsigned codes' hands to itself. Unsigned code can't mess with signed/secure data on the hd or in ram. But it can still run; you can still have that functionality. Your current version of mame will still happily run.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to matter as we can see in the way the current Microsoft lawsuit is being handled. If that lawsuit didn't stop them, why would they worry about pushing around the government and the people again?
Who said Freedom was Fair?
I wish more people would figure this out.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
I'll bet we have examples of both before Palladium is publicly available.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
How they are unfounded? When someone can't copy their own work for fear of hurting someone else's profits, they have lost their rights on that matter.
Would we? You're assuming everyone is perfectly rational, and has access to all the information needed to make the correct decision. When it comes to computer software, however, most people are "lost in the dark", and so they stick with what they know works, even if something better does exist.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
They are "lost in the dark", the cost of changing (including the risk) is greater then the benefit, so they don't.
Their irrationality just changes the values of particular actions.
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I'm writing this posting on a WinXP machine. Before I had Win95, I used 98, then 2000 and now XP. With nearly every upgrade or patch our freedom as users has been decreased ever so slightly. As it is a gradual process, no one will really notice (no, ./ geeks don't account for a substantial amount of Win users) and it is really hard to draw the line. When is enough enough? The big pro in MS products is their usability. As long as the UI stays ahead of the rest users WILL accept the gradual decay of their freedom without so much noticing it.
Maybe I can't speak for the majority of Slashdot users out there, but with every Windows version I owned I thought: 'This is going to be my last Windows version. I'll make the switch after that. This new crap has crossed the line.' And EVERY time I went back and bought the new crap because I could get my apps running easier, because I could play my favorite games, or simply because the UI allowed me to be more productive.
As long as MS leads the industry they WILL shove this stuff down our throats and we WILL swallow it. I can imagine EXACTLY what this future will look like. The bad thing is that the public will see nothing bad in it. And if someone objects just label him as a terrorist...
Damn! You mean Adobe will stop selling Photoshop for Linux?
...oh, wait.
Next thing you'll probably tell me that Microsoft will recall MS Office for Linux too!
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
CODE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE SIGNED BY MICROSOFT TO RUN.
TODAY code does not have to be signed by Microsoft to run.
TODAY.
Do you get it? How long, given the continued moves to foist DRM on us, do you think it will be until all code requires a "DRM-OK" signature to run? The potential for new law changes the light in which this technology must be seen, and you're being an ahistorical dimwit by talking about the present as if it protects you from the future.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Yeah, the whole consumer thing is scarey. Seems like politicians more often voice their concerns for 'the consumer' than for 'the citizen.' And about the only concern they have for the latter is that (s)he be a 'productive citizen,' normally translated as playing a role in cranking out stuff for 'consumers.' It's as if our whole civilization is being reduced to an eating (consuming) disorder - except of course civilization is also having a problem (especially in the States) with its bowels.
If someone would keep track, I'd be happy to cast my future votes for whoever among politicians says 'the consumer' the least. Much as I like the physical world, 'the consumer' just translates to 'slave and addict to commercial output,' which doesn't quite equate to 'appreciator of what has real value in life.'
To bring this back to topic, the issue is enforcement of commercial value over real value in our stuff, which will further alienate commercial value from real value - which long term is not at all good for commercialism. The severe anti-material turn that produced the Middle (aka 'Dark') Ages was the longer-term reaction to the crassness of Roman commercial culture, towards the end of which citizenship was also devalued on the excuse of needing to strengthen the Emperor's hand to meet the threat from barbarian terror.
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
If they can control what authorized software is, that means they could authorize software to run for only a certain period of time, forcing you to upgrade.
I wish Microsoft would take the Sun Solaris approach, where programs that ran 5-7 years ago are guaranteed to run on the latest platform. Sun upgrades are available, and I pay for them. But that also gives me 24x7 support. If I don't want to upgrade, I don't have to and everything works fine.
I wouldn't mind paying several hundred dollars a year for a software subscription if decent support came with it.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
If only we were. The whole issue is that the new systems are going to severely restrict what the users can do, for fear of them breaking the DMCA.
Still, this kind of nonsense has been around for years. Why should an independent musician wanting to record his own music have to pay some other record company a levy on the blank media he uses?
All this nonsense is interlinked. On one side, you have the perceived problem of copyright infringement of things such as music and film, and on the other side you essentially have certain technology companies trying to appear to be combating this problem. What they are really doing is extending their control over the computers of other people.
Do you *really* want a computer that can only run pre-approved software?
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Frankly, I can't see any difference between this and the previous Clinton administration Clipper Chip proposal from eight to ten years back. Except that now instead of the government having control over signing digital certificates we have a single private corporation. That's freedom for you! One further point: you state the system will only be used to control copying of content. Since the most fundamental operation of a computer is to copy, as in moving a byte from memory to a register for example, isn't by definition this also a mechanism to control how one may USE said content? Even if the content is something you created on your own?
I find it utterly amazing to read such large numbers of libertarian conservatives -- folks who presumably support individual liberty and non-authoritarian government -- so easily willing to cave into the demands of huge private corporations at their own detriment. Institutions so large they generate a revenue stream larger than most third world governments, and who clearly use the same monopolistic and exclusionary tactics so hated by the conservative right when the issue turns to government monopolies. And before anyone brings up the fact that government has guns while Microsoft (Disney et all) doesn't, might I point out just who they're buying off in order to obtain the legislation which will force us all to use their cripple-ware?
--Maynard
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insert into permissions values ("All","Copy / Rip","DVDs")
delete permissions where user = "billg"
delete permissions where company = "microsoft"
Two wrongs may not make a right, but three
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If Palladium's goal is to increase security then it is a worthy idea, but not if users can't control it. Put an entry in the computers bios to allow the depth of control the hardware will allow. This is sort of what we have now with bios virus detection. You have to turn this off to install some software, you can turn it back on when the system is up and running. In an IT setting the computer bios could be set to allow such hardware control, the bios password could be setup and users wouldn't be able to mess with the settings as the ID dept. would hold the passwords. End user geeks would be able to do what they want, opting out at their own perl to viri that the hardware/software would protect them from.
Of course the virus writers could steal signatures and the whole system would be for naught. When you consider that PC hardware is used in embedded products with custom software it becomes clear that an opt-out to Palladium hardware is needed or this thing just won't sell. Want to run Windows? Then you might HAVE to opt-in. That's ok, if your trust MS.
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Ok, Sparkey, let's zoom back a little:
DRM is a what.
Palladium is a how.
We both know that a general purpose computer cannot be made secure for DRM purposes - somebody can write a program which copies files at an arbitrarily low level and defeats your DRM features.
If the government mandates DRM on computers, M$ simply locks Palladium down so that code which has not been signed DRM-OK will not run, claims compliance, and its all over.
What part of this don't you understand?
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
One problem is that it's impossible to ship such an OS with a level of trust that preserves competition. If only MSFT is trusted by default, and a scary message must be acknowledged before trusting other parties, most users will use only MSFT software. If only MSFT and people it trusts are trusted by default, and a scary message must be acknowledge before trusting other parties, MSFT gains a lot of power over what people do use (and trust can be centrally revoked, enabling MSFT to partake of a number of slimy business models). If VeriSign or similar is at the root of default trust at the OS level, and a scary message must be acknowledged before trusting other roots, shareware/freeware authors have to pay a tax to VeriSign to create their applications, thus stifling innovation. If no scary message is printed at all, then the point of the whole system is moot.
Have you tried as an individual to get an Authenticode certificate from VeriSign lately? They won't do it because of half-assed reasoning that includes the two meaningless trump words "national security". If, as you claim, this project is about "hardware enforced trust" then how does a user attempting to insert their own hierarchy of trust distinguish themselves from a virus (or, heaven forbid, a competitor) attempting to insert its own hierarchy of trust?This is about software trusting hardware and software trusting software. The hardware doesn't need to trust anything, and hardware trusting software is a well-researched and well-practiced problem which requires nothing short of potting whole systems in epoxy to foil attackers. Read Microsoft's patents, not Microsoft's propaganda.
This has nothing to do with the problems smart cards solve. Smart cards attest to the identity of the user, and as people are movable it makes perfect sense for these to be movable as well. Palladium's version of trust has nothing to do with a user proving their identity and only with proving a computer's identity. People don't care about a computer's identity. State-sanctioned spies, content vendors, corporations, software and software vendors do. What does a secure real-time clock do for the average user? Nothing. This is not about solving problems for the end-user. Incorrect. If there is a patent on loading and identifying a digital rights management operating system its use is governed by Microsoft's licensure of that patent. If systems will (as feared) fail to allow use of the cryptographic processor or potentially even the entire system unless every stage of the boot trusts the next one by signature, that seriously degrades the user serviceability of open-source OSes. If users can set the secure real-time clock then it's clearly not secure. To top it all off, Microsoft is not known for handing out code under terms that allow modification or redistribution, and I fully expect the Palladium source to be released under the same viral "shared-source" look-but-don't-compete license as the CIFS specification and MSDN. History has shown they open things just enough to get maximum traction in any particular campaign. I suspect that, as they have done historically, they will disclose just enough info to allow them some slimy claims about openness and then aggressively leverage those claims to gently or brutally exclude competition on many levels.This initiative has nothing to do with consumers except to ensure they consume and pay for the privilege.
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
has little to do with anything outside of the software industry.
As it happens there is over two hundred years of copyright law defining the *limited* rights of the copyright holder and asserting, in explicit terms, that the copyright holder's "wants" have very distinct boundries.
You, as the purchaser, ( yes, outside the software industry items under copyright protection are still *purchased* by the 'consumer'), have very distinct *rights,* ( not priviledges, rights), to act with and upon such 'content' even against the copyright holders 'want.'
Have to abide by what the publisher wants? Where on EARTH did you get the idea that anyone is so constrained?
In the words of my dear, sweet, departed granny, " Fuck that shit!"
KFG
Anecdote: yesterday, I phoned one of my suppliers to order a new machine with a dual athlon plus SCSI motherboard. I asked him how many he'd supplied and what operating systems they'd had on them. The answer was thirty-five, and all various versions of Linux. It strikes me that probably ninety odd percent of dual athon machines are running Linux, but at least four manufacturers are producing motherboards. Which tells me that there's enough market for Linux machines - even at the high end - for the capitalist system to go on producing them. Furthermore, none of these motherboards makers are headquartered in the United States. So no matter what Senator Hollings manages to impose in the US, the rest of us will still have usable computers.
Seen from this point of view, Palladium may on balance even be a good thing. Lusers who aren't fit to be trusted will get computers which they can't break, and the rest of us will still be able to buy computers we can...
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
1, The entertainment commerce X-box/Cable/Sat TV box/Subscription Web Browsing appliance box which needs a subscription to use. Even the video link to the monitor and Audio link to the speakers will be bidirectional handshaking encrypted data links. A sniffed copy of the data stream will not play back on another device, or the same device at a later time. It's a pay to play format protected every inch of the way by encryption.
2 General Use computers for word processing, spread sheets, hacking, photography, piracy, CD ripping (you know the obsolete format), low resolution TV recording (Not HDTV digital after 2007) and non-subscription web browsing. This second box will be locked out of the new media formats and trusted commerce standards. New media material will not be released in open formats. Windows, Mac, and Linux fall into this latter catagory. Non protected media content will be barred from the internet at strategic choke points. Media trading in this format will be prosicuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The truth shall set you free!
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Re-read my post, dimwit.
Things change. Today, the user decides. Tomorrow, it may be the Feds, or Micro$oft, or somebody else entirely.
You act as if the policies can't be changed once the architecture exists, and that is why I call you stupid.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Historically "optional" in the digital rights world means "will be required by contract".
It would appear that the "jack ass", as you referred to the original poster as, has a point.
Even though Microsoft is releasing all of the source to Palladium, what proof do we have that the binaries that are distributed are built verbatim from the sources provided? None.
The reason that source is distributed is so that you have, if you so desire, the tools necessary to verify the functionality of the code, then build a binary from the code that you just completed verifying.
Microsoft is under no obligation to provide you a binary that is built from the sources they provide. You could decompile the binary and compare opcodes against those of a binary built from the provided source, but even that is a faulty solution, since Microsoft is under no obligation to compile the sources using a publically available compiler.
The original poster may have gone overboard, but I hardly think he is a jack ass.
I don't see why it would only work in Windows. If it's just more hardware on the motherboard, a company selling a piece of closed source software could certainly make calls to said hardware. They might need to distribute a binary kernel module (or partially open, like nVidia) and require you to run it. Some people might not like this idea, but these people probably wouldn't want to run closed source programs either.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
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You can get a frog to allow itself to be boiled to death in the same manner. If you place it in a pot of boiling water, it will try to escape. However, if you place it in a pot of cool or warm water and gradually increase the temperature, it will sit there until it has been cooked.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
So yeah, of course you moron, things change. But Palladium doesn't change that one or antoher.
Erm... bullshit. Read some Lessig - Palladium is an architecture - it changes what is possible.
If DRM is mandated, but manufacturers can't or won't produce DRM compliant systems, the law will fail. If there is an eager, gloating manufacturer's alliance, all ready to go... think of the commercial pressure...
It's an attempt to abolish competition, curtail freedom of speech and hand over the domestic computer industry to a select few players; you may be lulled into thinking "oh, it's just some crypto hardware for making sure unsigned code can't run" but in the long run (which you seem to be so blind to) it matters.
You can't legislate the impossible: Palladium makes it possible, which makes legislation mandating it or an equivalent system all the more likely. By changing the landscape of potential, you can change the landscape of the actual.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
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. . .as George Bush (the First) might have said, will kill this. It's what killed DivX as a competitor to DVD.
In the hardware market, these Palladium hooks are known as "features." Features cost money. . . so anyone who wants to sell a computer built for Palladium has to explain why consumers have to pay more money for a system that tells them what they can or cannot do with it.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
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>> Maybe I can't speak for the majority of Slashdot users out there, but with every Windows version I owned I thought: 'This is going to be my last Windows version. I'll make the switch after that. This new crap has crossed the line.' And EVERY time I went back and bought the new crap because I could get my apps running easier, because I could play my favorite games, or simply because the UI allowed me to be more productive.
Well, THIS Slashdot user works for a Microsoft Solutions Provider and therefore has access/company purchasing/training on all the Microsoft I can stand, even though I usually work the Unix side of the fence for them. And even though I'm an up-to-date MCSE, at home I back-revved all the Windows boxes to Win98SE. Contrary to what you hear from the Church of Bill, Win2K and its variant/mutant children are NOT more stable, fun or rewarding to use and they're a lot more pesky to nail down regarding matters of spyware, privacy control and consumers' rights in general. And although I have in the past helped maintain my (computer non-literate) friends' boxes for free, I have advised all of them that I will not touch any box with WinXP on it and I'd rather not bother with Win2K unless they have some killer app that absolutely demands it. I have convinced many to backrev to Win98 and without exception, they have benn happier after doing so.
The new crap crossed the line a while back, around the time the Media Player patches screwed up every other manufacturer's multimedia applications on the box. Enough already! I've got most of my friends dual-booting to Slackware, and whenever their boxes' damned internal Winmodems are supported some of those boxes are going to not be running Windows much, if at all.
Palladium changes a lot: the major chip manufacturers and M$ in an alliance to make DRM a reasonable technical and legal reality.
I'd say that's news.
And nobody is talking about control of the world: only restriction of the freedoms we've grown used to on the internet.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
No. What'll happen is that hardware vendors will offer "unencumbered" hardware for a much higher price than DRM hardware -- because the CPU vendors will charge much higher prices for unencumbered CPUs.
So if you want to be free, you'll have to pay for it (rather handsomely, I might add). Or you could get DRM hardware for much cheaper. Your choice.
Guess which choice most people are going to take? Right: most people don't give a f*ck about freedom.
Oh, by the way, just because the spec right now might say that the computer will boot an "untrusted" OS doesn't mean they won't change the spec later (once the basic technology is entrenched) so that only "trusted" OSes will be allowed to boot -- they will. Count on it.
And if you think a law won't eventually be passed in the U.S. requiring the use of DRM-enabled hardware (the law will probably be written in such a way that one could apply for and obtain an exemption, and you can bet that the process of getting such an exemption will be very expensive -- so that only large corporations and the very wealthy can afford to get one), think again. Who owns the U.S. government? Right: the large corporations. Most of which would benefit in one way or another from such a law (especially if the exemption mechanism is included).
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Now, what will happen is that some CPUs will offer cryptographic code checking, and that some .NET and Java runtimes will do the same for bytecodes. When they run in "normal" mode, they will check that the checksums are OK. I doubt it will help much with viruses or DRM, but, hey, Microsoft is floundering when it comes to security, so they need to do something.
I think Palladium isn't worth the extensive discussion and fear that it has caused. It's just another hare-brained Microsoft scheme, along with their nth iteration of "the file system is a database" and "intelligent assistants that ask whether your computer is turned on"; nothing much will come of it. And if Microsoft really goes through with it, all the better for the rest of us--there is no faster way than that to give marketshare to PCs based on embedded chips from Motorola--like the Macintosh for example.
I must say I am _amazed_ by how big companies are allowed to cripple civil rights over there. A country previously recogniced as one of the greatest democracies. ;)
Millions of people have given their lives to protect the rights that you are now giving away because it's profitable?
Don't get me wrong, I beleive in strong, open market economy. But is that really where you are headed?
(If I was older, this would be where I'd start talking about "the good old days"... but unfortunately I'm not
-- Black holes are, where God is dividing by zero.
At our company, IT has a lot of people building Web apps, corporate data warehouses, etc., a moderate number devoted to the physical infrastructure (keeping the phones, servers, network bandwidth, etc. working), and a handful of "help desk" people in charge of setting up and supporting people's PCs and Macs. They are not, in general, interchangeable.
Our company has a lot of tech-savvy employees, which is admittedly different from many companies, but we're hardly unique. We engineers don't usually care if the help desk guys want to make and enforce rules about shared resources, such as email or servers. We won't throw a tantrum about not being able to use elm or pine against the company MS Exchange email server.
But we also won't allow the help desk to control our local apps. Even within IT, the Web apps engineers aren't about to let the help desk guys decide whether they can install Perl or not.
Things could change. Security risks could increase, networking could make "local" have less and less meaning, client management could become more valuable, etc.
But for the foreseeable future, I don't see us taking much power out of the hands of the experts (each in his own area) and giving it to these guys.
I understand the cost-savings of standardized and centralized management of certain things shared by all. But we wouldn't want to overdo it and make the people doing the work we sell less effective in order to make the internal help desk more efficient.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Besides this, I just read Levy's article in Newsweek. Some things are still not clear to me. How will Intel, AMD, and others implement the hardware? Will the feature be ignored unless explicitly exploited by software, e.g. the OS? Hopefully so, otherwise the new architecture will only run Windows, at least until others catch up.
And how will others catch up? Even if the security features can be ignored, users will want to use them even if they run, say Linux or BSD. And who among the users of a multiuser system will "own" the processor? We can hardly expect Intel to build respect for UNIX file permissions into the CPU, can we?
Finally, what will happen if I swap a piece of hardware? What will I have to do to make a new chip do the same as the old one, if they are unique in some way?
My point is that according to the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, only motherboard manufacturers may include binary code in the protected space of a trusted BIOS.
The spec, available here in PDF, prohibits the end user from updating this code. So the question is, whose binary will run in this space? My binary compiled from the publically available shared source? Probably not.
Granted, this is not Microsoft's Palladium, but it is logical to assume that the so-called Trusted PC will be an important part of the actual Microsoft implementation.
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BIOS - all that does is control a secure boot up process that loads a few system components
Exactly. You are correct that saying the BIOS is responsible for bootstrapping, but under Trusted PC, only signed components, whose public key certificate is issued by a CA whose root cert is stored in the unmodifiable area of the BIOS, will be allowed to be "booted". Who decides which CA certs are in the bios, and how does the CA decide which bootstrap component vendors should be issued BIOS certs?
This is a total chicken and egg problem (as is this point-counterpoint). Eventually, someone other than the user will have to make a trust decision. That is the fundamental problem that I have with Pallidium and Trusted PC.
... I should point out that some sources actually say that Ulysses got the Palladium by getting Helen's cooperation. Also several cities copied the Palladium - I doubt that licenses or copyright laws were followed. Last of all, Ulysses was known as a crafty, shrewd man who was "never at a loss" - in fact, as I'm sure you know, the Trojan Horse was his idea.
It would be a fair statement to say he had the mentality and abilities of a hacker. So, Microsoft named its security model after a theft committed by a hacker of the ancient world.
Just call me Cassandra.
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We need the larger DRM debate. That is important.
I agree. We should figure out what "fixed" looks like before we end up with a proprietary, patent-bound solution from the Ogre of Redmond.
Not that I wouldn't be worried if Sun were behind this, but we've seen the M$ approach to open systems too often to take this as anything other than a direct threat to the availability of OS-neutral hardware and potentially to the viability of open source all together.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
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Or something.
Don't ask me, it's not like _I_ make a point of giving them a fair shake with their new proposals. I feel I understand their motives and behavior patterns well enough by now, and that I know what to expect from them.
After all, these are the people who came up with a twist on 'open source' that, far from being unencumbered, is just as viral as the GPL but carries an opposite payload- namely, legally binding admissions that could be used against undesired software projects for the life of the programmer.
I must say I am _amazed_ by how big companies are allowed to cripple civil rights over there. A country previously recogniced as one of the greatest democracies.
Yesterday I attended a party in Evanston (a suburb of Chicago). My host asked that I bring a bottle of wine, so I took along a magnum of 2000 Yellow Tail Shiraz.
5 cops were guarding the entrance end of the platform, searching everyone. Apparently, in the Land of the Free, an adult American is no longer permitted to carry a sealed bottle of wine onto a train (even though I had no cork screw or wine glasses on my person). In other words, if you are too poor to own a car, you cannot transport alcohol, even in sealed form, over any significant distance in this country anymore, especially not on our "Independence" day.
Fortunately for me the El Train was far less stringently controlled, so while I was an hour late to my friend's 4th of July party, I was at least able to make it.
We have already lost most of our freedoms in this country.
We have lost the freedom from search and seizure without due process.
We have lost (much) of the separation of church and state, which means most minority religions (and non-religions such as agnostacism or athiesm) have essentially lost much of their religious freedom.
We have lost much of our right to bear arms. Not a personal pieve of mine, but relevant nevertheless since the act requred widespread violation of the constitution and judicial tolerance of those violations.
We have lost the right not to be detained without charges, without due process, and with access to an attourney. People are now routinely "disappeared" into our Gulag, always under the excuse of anti-terrorism, where they are held incommunicado for weeks or even months. Some may in fact be terrorists, but most are not.
We have lost numerous personal, daily freedoms (like the ability to take a bottle of wine over to a friend's home who doesn't live within walking distance), many within the last few months.
Now, through Palladium and/or Disney Holling's DRM efforts we are about to lose our very freedom of speech in the digital age. Based on all of the other lost freedoms, given up in the name of War on [drugs|sex offendors|terrorism], I do not hold out much of any hope for preserving the remaining tatters of the constitution as our illustrious leaders open up Yet Another War, this time on (cracking? viruses? copyright violation? technical savvy that surpasses the FBI's?) Whatever they end up calling this farce, I'm sure they'll find a term that evokes the proper level of fear and dread in the general public to justify the removal of these last, tattered freedoms from our all-too-willing hands, and as one of our founding fathers has warned, we will find in our haste to trade the last of our freedoms for the perception of a little security that we, in fact, have neither.
Certainly the police stopping me for wanting to take a bottle of wine to a friends weren't protecting anyone, for indeed these encroachments on our liberty have absolutely nothing to do with protection and security, and everything to do with simple Power.
Unfortunately, by the time the majority of the people understand that all of this nonsense is about an unprecendented Power grab by an unconstitutional secret police (FBI, ), it will be far too late to do much of anything about it. If it isn't already.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy